Theme:

Although MacDonald would later explore the northern Ontario landscape and travel to the Rockies, The Tangled Garden was inspired by the late summer garden of his house in Thornhill, Ontario.

" One makes no claim that The Tangled Garden and other pictures abusively condemned by the critics are genuine works of art merely because of their effect upon them, but they may be assured they were honestly and sincerely produced." J.E.H. MacDonald